To the Ends of the Earth
by TheseBrokenWings
Summary: Slash! BarbossaxBootstrap. Bootstrap's POV of the movies,and beyond. Betrayed by his best friend and condemned to rot beneath the sea, first alone and then as a member of Davy Jones' crew,Bootstrap dreams about the man he has forgiven, despite everything.
1. Underwater, Bootstrap Dreams

Author's note: Ahoy, everyone! Jordan here. Here's the first chapter of something I've been working on for a while -- A Bootstrap/Barbossa fic! I was inspired to write one by my dear friend Pan, who showed me who Barbossa really is, and gave me Bootstrap. So this is dedicated to her I know the fic is rather... convoluted and confusing, but it's supposed to be. I hope it's understandable, anyway.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Don't sue me.

**To the E****nds of the Earth: Underwater, Bootstrap Dreams**

Bootstrap knows that the water is cold, but he cannot feel it. He doesn't need to breathe but he does anyway, the familiar motions of acquisition and expulsion comforting. The water billows out from between his lips, and on the good days his lungs burn. There is nothing to see, but he does not close his eyes, and in the good moments he doesn't even notice the darkness.

There's this time when we were young. When you looked at me like I was strange and gave me a name, and I loved you for it.

Here's a story:

As the son of a Commodore, young William Turner has standards to uphold. He is to attend official functions, such as the one occurring today, in official dress, and act, well… official. His father, although obviously a military man, feels much more affinity to the noble part of his job, and thus has trained his son thoroughly as a gentleman. He always knows which fork to use, he can be courteous in four different languages, and he knows how to dress.

(He's forgotten now. A fork is just a fork to Bootstrap Bill, and the only languages he speaks are English and pirate, and he's losing even those now because fantasies do not speak in words.)

Of course, as happy as his father might be with him, William Turner himself is not. The high collared navy jacket, complete with gold embroidery and copper buttons, feels like it is choking him, and the tight beige britches ride up something horrible. It is all he can do to convince his father not to make him wear his wig – a ridiculous, flea infested white thing, which covers his short, curly brown hair and makes him feel like it is five hundred degrees out even in the dead of winter. That he couldn't have dealt with, but the rest… well, it is what his father wants, and William Turner wants nothing more than to please his father.

(He left without saying goodbye. Hector tells him much later when they are marooned together on an island, his eyes on the horizon and Bootstrap's eyes on him, as water laps around their ankles, that he would rather be stuck there forever than be back home for a moment, and Bootstrap knows it isn't because he is there and that makes him want to hold his hand.)

Well, he thinks reflectively, as he follows his father through the crowded streets of Port Royale to the center stage, that isn't quite true. He holds one secret desire which he has never shared with anyone, which eats at his insides late at night when he lies in bed, listening to the waves lap against the shore – he wants to be a pirate.

("You? You want to be a pirate?" Hector asks incredulously when they meet on a cliff, and doesn't believe him until their fancy jackets are falling down together, sleeves just touching. William watches them and feels like he is flying himself.)

Of course, the raping and pillaging don't really appeal to him. In fact, he thinks it all sounds rather mean. But being on the open water, free, the biggest care in the world being how much rum you have left – William has never tasted rum, but he is sure it must be wonderful – with no one to tell you what to do, surrounded by close friends… that is what William wants more than anything in the world.

(He's telling himself the story as he hangs, pulling endlessly upward. When he landed he rotated slowly for what felt like years but was probably only a week. Now he is motionless and he misses it. He's telling himself the story and he can almost feel it, that longing, that quaver in his heart.)

But he supposes it can never happen. After all, he doesn't even have friends, not any who might consider anything like that. Sure, he plays with the local boys, but they don't like him much – he isn't one to nick trinkets from shops, or sneak up on girls to pinch their bottoms, or roll around wrestling in the mud of an alley… it's all too unpleasant. William wants real friends, true friends, who will stick by his side through thick and thin. With friends like that, he figures, he can do anything -- even something as impossible seeming as stealing a ship, and making his way out into the world as a pirate.

(Friends like that. Friends like that. He remembers watching Hector's eyes as he sinks, remembers the strange mixture of guilt and triumph in them and wonders which he cares most about.)

Sighing, William stops beside his father, leaning against a marble pillar. This is sure to be boring. Then… a boy is leaving the crowd, a boy who looks about William's age. William has never seen him before, but... there is something about him.

(He watches through his own eyes as Hector is young and runs across the courtyard and away. He watches through his own eyes as Hector is young and then is everything.)

"Da, I've got to go to the bathroom," he tells his father, his first lie, slipping away before the man can answer. He runs after the boy, the top few buttons of his blue jacket coming undone as he does, revealing the pink skin underneath. He follows him up to a cliff, used to defend the town, judging by the two cannons which stand near-by. When he is close, he calls out to the other boy somewhat shyly. "Hey." He waves a bit, before remembering his manners and sticking his hand out straight, to shake. "I'm William Turner. Very pleased to make your acquaintance."

(We met by cannons. Separated by cannons. We'd die by cannons if we'd ever die. I love you.)

Bootstrap knows he is cursed, but moonlight cannot penetrate the depths of the ocean anymore than sunlight can. It is dark, and Bootstrap is human. If he could raise a hand he'd touch his face to verify this over and over, to feel the smooth skin under his hands, bloated by water but skin none-the-less, feel the arch of his nose and the ridge of his cheek bones.

William at sixteen lies in the small cabin touching himself, and he lets out a small sob as he comes. The bed across from him is empty, the sheets mussed by one who cannot sleep, and although Bill knows that Hector is up on the deck staring into the wind, he lies on his side and watches Hector as if he was there, tracing his friend's face with the eyes of memory, his expression lax and uncontrolled in sleep, his chest moving up and down slowly.

He has never wanted to be a monster.

Would you like another story?

Bootstrap sends a coin away. Bootstrap sends a coin away. Bootstrap sends a coin.

There's a carefully addressed envelope, smudged and well handled, and he carries it under his coat when they make port. The rest will desperately try to break the curse themselves in this Tortuga, this one last chance. But Bootstrap already knows, so he sends his life away by a shilling postage and a small tip for the mailboy. He believes Jack is dead or will be soon, and almost envies him for it. For being human. Each piece of gold is perfectly identical. No one will notice this one he sends away; for Jack but for himself as well. Hector drinks too much when he never drinks too much and Bootstrap hates himself because he does not understand why.

An interlude -- the memories flow freely and this one catches then, bright, orange color. A woman. Her hair.

Bootstrap has never really been one for women. A prostitute forced on him by Jack when he was young, her rouged cheeks and high hair pulling at his eyes, so they shut as he enters her and thinks of nothing. There's pleasure, white and hot, and then there is nothing again, and she's gone too, and Bootstrap wishes he'd had someone to betray so he couldn't. Wouldn't.

But there's this woman, and there's something about her.

He does not believe in fate, but at times he thinks it believes in him.

Jack leans back in his chair for a moment, his boots in the foreground, propping them up onto the table and laughing around his mug that Bootstrap's in love. Hector is there too, somewhere, but Bootstrap does not remember his face. Will not remember what was not there, a sadness in those glassy eyes. There wasn't one.

So it's anger, then, as much as fate, and they work together. He lies in bed as they sail away, picturing with open eyes the tiny person growing inside of her. He knows nothing of eggs and sperm, nothing of cells, and to him Will is always human, growing from the size of a marble to a proper baby, fully formed.

They meet once. He is still tiny and red, and his name is William. Bootstrap is Bill, so he is Will, and Will is perfect.

Perfect.

There are these glowing fish which swim past him, sometimes, their lures leaving bright white trails of light across his eyes, and for days he can't even see the darkness. It's much worse. Bootstrap has learned to hate the light.

There's this time when we're not so young.

"Do you even see me, Hector?" He asks desperately, reaching out a hand to brush the cloth above the other man's heart, his fingers curling away before they reach skin. Sometimes Bootstrap wants to bite him and sometimes he wants to kill him, because then he'd be marked and Hector would always be there. But mostly he wants to be allowed to love him, allowed simple touches which do not matter which matter which do not matter and which probably don't even exist anyway.

There are times I think I can almost feel you. That those are your fingers on my arm. There's this time when we were young when you did touch me, brushing ash or gun power from my cheek, and I loved you for it.

I loved you for a lot of things.

There's this story I have that you kill me. That the pistol you give him has two shots instead of one, and you use the first on me, pressing the barrel against my head while he watches and says nothing. My hand is on your sleeve, and you growl at me even then for touching you. You squeeze the trigger, and I die. There is no pain.

But I am not gone. I do not see my own body on the ground until I float up above it and stick myself behind your eyes. And then I understand. As I watch blood seep from my own head, I can feel your horror and your sadness and your necessity. I know why you did it, killed Jack and killed me, and I forgive you.

But then the water moves imperceptibly and I don't remember anymore. But I forgive you anyway.

There are times when Bootstrap sees with perfect clarity. When the images clear from his mind, leaving true eyes alone to peer sightlessly into the darkness, and those are the only times he is scared.

I loved you for a lot of things.

And there's another time you dreamt of something dark and I understood why you never seem to sleep. There are these eyes, wide open in the dark, and Hector leans back against Bootstrap and asks him softly if he thinks he has a soul.

You think I don't remember. But I do. It's hard to forget here, Hector, and you're all I ever see. It's hard to forget here.

You have a soul. Love me.

Liar.

If you were never as young as I, then why do I remember our laughter at night; the stories you told to scare me, as we lay in that small cabin we shared on our first ship? (There may have been that look in your eye and I might have wanted to kiss you, but it doesn't matter -- we were there.)


	2. The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Author's note: Ahoy again! Here is chapter two. Hope you enjoy it, please R&R! Oh, and you should all read this fic's companion piece -- Trust, by my dear friend CaptainMeds. And review that, too P

Oh, and another note -- I'm a little confused about the exact nature of the curse. Barbossa says he can feel nothing, but the pirates seem to be able to feel pain -- so I've decided they can.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Don't sue me. I don't even own the title of this chapter -- if you understand the reference, I'll love you forever. And yes, I'm aware it's trite. Shush, you.

**To the Ends of the Earth: The Unbearable Lightness of Being**

It's much harder to live life than to tell a story.

There are these tentacles.

Bootstrap thinks they are part of a story first, or a memory, because they seem disembodied by the dark -- green, twisting things which flow through the water effortlessly and do not make it move. But they touch him, and Bootstrap shudders even though he cannot feel it.

The layer of algae which has settled on his skin rains down as the tentacles wrap around his body, dwarfing him with their vastness, and his bonds snap as they tug him upward. The pressure is still too great, and he cannot move. The acceleration is too much, this violent upwards motion after months of motionlessness. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to believe in anything.

Bootstrap does not know if pirates believe in heaven. He knows they believe in hell, but there cannot be a worse place than where he was. He still believes this is true. Later, when the kraken comes for them again, he fears the water far more than Davy Jones, and he claims to be afraid that Hector will stay behind to go down with his ship, but he really is just afraid to be alone again.

It is not a smooth movement, his ascension, he realizes. They move in quick bursts, an undulation. And the tentacles are not disembodied. There are others, more tentacles, and they whip around him. Forward. Upward.

Bootstrap needs no oxygen, but he longs for it, to cough the saline water from his lungs and feel them empty. The salt will sting and dry him from the inside.

There is light suddenly. The sun, he realizes, and although it is filtered through many hundreds of feet of water, to him it is so bright that his eyes close reflexively with the force of it. Even his eyelids are not comfort enough, the moving shadows shining through, reddened by the blood he still possesses. If he were cut it would not spill out, but it would coat the blade. Hector.

Where are you now, my friend, as I am carried back into the light? Bootstrap has grown to hate the light.

Bootstrap has grown to hate the light.

"Who are you?" Hector. Are you? I love you.

Bootstrap's first motion is to raise a hand to shield his eyes, the movement jerky and shaking, and that is his first question. "Who are you?" Again. The tentacles spill him onto wood, slimy and wet, and there is no air to breathe, no comforting salt drying on his skin. "I miss you. I miss everything."

He doesn't believe in the words that answer, burbling from the figure before him, whose silhouette he can only just see through the gaps in his fingers, the slits of his eyes. They are still underwater, and it is far too bright. "Ye've been in the ocean too long, Bootstrap Bill Turner."

Tell me a story. "A story?"

There's something touching his chin, something too thick and long to be a finger, and it sticks to his skin. He shudders with the touch but cannot move to knock it away. Doesn't want to. Pain is something. Pain is everything when there is nothing else.

"A mere story?" Burbling laughter. "No, Mr. Turner. No. A legend."

He cannot think. There's too much noise, too much light. Laughter, he realizes finally. That is what the dull roar is. Laughter, high and inhuman.

"I... I want..."

The tentacle recoils, curling into a face before his eyes. Bootstrap would not have recognized his own face if he'd been able to see it now, but he is a pirate and there isn't a pirate in the world who doesn't know that face.

"What is it you want, Bootstrap? I'll happily have the kraken bring you back down, just say the word." Davy Jones smiles knowingly, wide, flat lips twisting into his beard of tentacles.

"No. Please -- no." There is no thinking. No consideration. There can't be. It isn't a choice.

"You know what you are promising, Mr. Turner? One hundred years aboard my ship, in exchange for freeing you."

Bootstrap nods. The wood is hard beneath him and he'd cry if he wasn't already swimming in tears. His eyes close, but he can hear the delight in Jones' voice. the murmur around him of what must be the crew, their excitement. Fresh meat. "Welcome aboard the Flying Dutchman, Bootstrap Bill."

Bootstrap is almost blind for the first few weeks of his servitude. He can barely move for the first few days, even the simplest muscles eaten away by disuse. He preforms simple duties, leaning painfully against the side of the boat as he scrubs the deck, wondering vaguely why they bother. The water leaves more than it washes away, the entire boat a mass of sediment and coral, and things more alive than any of its previously human occupants. The others leave him alone until he can move, but he is not thankful. He knows. There'd be no fun in it before then. He pretends to be weak for as long as he can, stumbling around in an exaggerated imitation of Jack, and peering close at everything through squinted eyes, but they soon catch on and punish him for lying. The wounds heal and they do not scar.

People are people everywhere, even if they aren't people. In the beginning he was different and now he is different. He waits to begin his transformation, to change from merely cursed to truly changed, blossoming spines, or fins, or gills. But he does not, and he is punished for that as well. He sleeps now, but does not dream, those naps shallow with fear. He wakes up to find the Captain standing over him more than once, prodding with tentacles as well as deformed hands, in desperate anger to know why his own magic will not work. Bootstrap explains as soon as he remembers, about the Aztec gold and the Aztec curse, and he is punished for that as well. He doesn't understand why he can feel pain when he can feel nothing else, but Gods do not understand humanity; do not know that pain is infinitely better than nothing, and although Bootstrap fears these beatings, fears the bite of the whip on his back and the shelled fists lacerating his skin, he still does not want to be back in the ocean alone.

But he misses the stories.

There is one he would not tell himself even in the worst moments, when he knew who he was and why he was at the bottom of the ocean with perfect, devastating clarity. When all he could see were Hector's eyes -- and god, those eyes -- watching him as he sunk, the impossible weight of the cannon pulling him downward. Away. A story he would not tell even when he was full of how much Hector needed him, how much he needed Hector, the boy he followed and the man he followed and the man he loved. But on the Dutchman he began to speak it, hesitantly, in words broken by pain and punctuated by screams. I love you. I love you. I love you.

There's this story where you rescue me. Where I see your eyes change from guilt and triumph to fear and need and you dive in after me, swimming faster than the gravity pulling me down. Where you reach me and grab me, and for seconds we sink together but you smile and cut through the ties, and we rise together while the cannon sinks and then you kiss me and you taste like sea water which tastes like tears and I can feel you.

Later, this is what Bootstrap is most ashamed of. Of believing even for those seconds, even to block out the pain, that Hector could love him too.

It changes when the curse is lifted. It is night, and they sail in shallow water, the moonlight penetrating the depths of the sea and changing him, this walking skeleton. These bones. He shudders mid-turn of the kraken's wheel, collapsing onto the deck with the force of it. This freedom. Flesh suddenly on his bones. They stop before he is trampled and Bootstrap is almost sorry because he can feel again. The grain of the wood, each knot and barnacle. He lies against it, immobilized by wonder before they yank him to his feet and he can feel that too.

Hector. Hector. You've... done it? Lifted it? "Hector?"

The last word is whispered aloud, and the two men dragging him share a knowing smirk. Bootstrap has been entertainment for a long time, and it isn't the first they've heard the name. "Hector," they taunt, shaking him, "Always Hector." Bootstrap can hear them but it doesn't matter because its gone. For a moment he is starving to death and drowning at once, and for a moment he thinks he might actually die. But it doesn't last. They drop him in a heap to the side where he will not be in the way, and Bootstrap's face itches as the starfish forms.

Davy Jones smiles when he sees it and says nothing, but Bootstrap is one of them then. They still shove him around, still awaken him by whispering the name at night, but Bootstrap is used to that and now he plays their games. He never wins and he never loses. One hundred years. Never a day less.

But the days go by. Endless days. Each one indecipherable from the one before it. They spend a few, rare moments above the water, and those are the only thing Bootstrap looks forward to. To breathing air and feeling the breeze on his skin. They are all quiet then, each reliving his own memory of the life he had before he had no life -- lovers and children and food and drink and life, swallowed with every breath of unnecessary air.

And with each ship they sink, each throat Bootstrap is forced to cut, he holds a secret, guilty hope that he will find Hector.

Because he lifted it, and that means that Bootstrap's son is dead. That means that Jack is dead, and Bootstrap is on the Dutchman for no reason. But it means Hector is really and truly alive again, and Bootstrap hates himself for being happy that Hector, at least, will not suffer the same fate.

That's another story, and even Bootstrap doesn't believe in it. Hector is bound and bloody before him, and Jones forces other men to sell their souls while Bootstrap kisses the blood from Hector's forehead and asks him why, and kills him before he can answer.


	3. In the End, Grief is a Lot Like Love

Author's note: I know this pairing has to catch on eventually P Please R&R! And again, please check out Trust by CaptainMeds, Barbossa's side of the story. Oh, and I apologize if the dialog isn't exactly correct -- I based it off my memory and what I could find online, but sadly it wasn't all around.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Don't sue me.

**To the Ends of the Earth: In the End, Grief is a Lot Like Love.**

"I've got a special job for you, Bootstrap Bill."

Bootstrap no longer cringes away from Davy Jones as he might have just a few years ago. He is stronger now, and it has been a long time since the captain has had reason to hurt him.

He turns to him and even through the dark, murky water it is possible to see how Bootstrap has changed, the growths on his skin, small, moving creatures extending from his cheek, the skin itself darkening like a waterlogged corpse, because in the end that is what he is. A corpse which walks and talks and works and feels, but a corpse nonetheless, eaten and eroded away by the sea. "A special job?"

"Aye. Ye're going to pay a visit to an old friend of yours."

There is a moment of incredible fear and terrible hope. As far as Bootstrap knows, he has only one friend left in the world. And it's impossible to think about him again, when Bootstrap has fought so hard -- not to forget, but to let the memories lie dorment. To only surface when he needs them. But now... Hector, Hector. "I can't--" let him see me like this, let him know what he's done, because if I see him I might tell him the story where he saves me and ask him why it hasn't yet come true and then it never will.

Not that Bootstrap believes it will, but the hope is addicting and he feeds on it. There's this story where you rescue me. It begins where you sail up on the Black Pearl alone and the story has no middle because what you do is impossible, but the end is this: Davy Jones lies dead on the deck in a pool of his own thick ink and I'm in your arms and you smile and tell me you're sorry.

Jones steps forward abruptly, wooden leg reverberating hard on the wood. "Ye'll do what I say, Mr. Turner, and no mistake. Jack Sparrow has been captain of his Pearl for thirteen years like we promised, and now it's time for me to take what's mine."

Jack? Jack Sparrow? "Jack isn't -- the mutiny. Barbossa, he --"

Davy Jones smiles grimly down at him, and Bootstrap's conflicted fear and want turns suddenly to horror and he cannot speak. Could not breathe, if he needed to.

"Why don't you pop over to the Black Pearl and see for yourself? Give him this for me." His tentacles envelop Bootstrap's hand for a moment, then he clicks his claws together and Bootstrap is gone.

Water. Water. Water, then wood, and then it stops. The Pearl.

The room is dusty and cobwebbed and just like he remembers it. He spent two short years aboard the ship, and never loved it near as much as Jack, but it is the closest thing to a home he's had since before he left his home, and it would be nice to be back if every splinter didn't remind him of Hector.

He glimpses a dusty bottle, one of the last, and pulls it from the rack, his fingers closing around it reflexively. It is becoming difficult to move them individually, his fingers, barnacles scraping together and threatening to meld into one. He sits down on a barrel, leaning back against the familiar wood, and barely notices the small creatures which scuttle across his skin, under his clothes and everywhere. He is becoming less and less human with every passing day, and Hector is dead. He must be, for Jack to have retaken the Black Pearl.

There's this time when we were young. When we step onto the Pearl for the first time, still slippery and wet from the ocean from which it has been raised, the long tentacles of the kraken leaving track marks of slime across the surface. Jack strides forward fearlessly, caressing each surface, every piece of wood or rope and cooing gently to her. You stand beside me, and I am foolish enough to mistake that look in your eye for worry when it must have really been greed. I want to touch your shoulder and speak softly, Jack to the Pearl and I to you, that everything will be alright, but I know you won't let me and it would have been a lie, anyway.

And another story -- Bootstrap stares down at the bottle of rum and remembers. He's gone over this before, each nuanced word and glance, picking through for the sign which must have been there, the moment in which Bootstrap missed his chance to fix everything.

There's this tavern in Tortuga. We've stopped for supplies; more rum and a heading, and Jack flirts with a woman named Scarlette while I watch you because I'm always watching you. My hands curl effortlessly around a mug of hot rum, more for comfort than for anything else -- we've stopped sharing a cabin on your insistence and I don't understand why. You're staring at a knot in the wood and I wonder if you're even there, do you taste the rum you're so diligently sipping? Do you hear me? I'm speaking your name. "Barbossa. Barbossa. Hector!"

You turn to look at me finally, and the emptiness of your eyes startles me. Glassy and black, you look at me like you don't know who I am.

"Hector...?" Suddenly quiet.

"Leave me alone, Bootstrap."

"No -- no. What's wrong?"

Speaking low. Gruff. "I tol' yeh to leave me alone."

"Hector --" A gun, pointed. From no where.

"Barbossa." Harsh. Insistent. "It's Barbossa."

In the memory, Bootstrap stares down the barrel of the gun and tries to believe that Hector would ever hurt him, but cannot. Even now. Even now, after everything.

Oh, god. Hector.

There's a light. Bootstrap cannot see him yet, but the drunken scuffle is unmistakable. He closes his eyes for a moment, trying to shove the emotions away. It doesn't matter. He has to be warned, and that's all. Another one of his friends cannot die.

"Time's run out, Jack." The words are choked, and water spills from inside him as he speaks.

"...Bootstrap? Bill Turner?"

Jack's face, illuminated and disbelieving, peering at him through the spider webs.

"You... look good, Jack," he says, and it's true. Jack has come out of the past years much better than himself. Infinitely better than Hector, and he hates him for it for the merest moment.

Jack pulls back. "Is this a dream?"

After a moment. Jack -- you killed him. You killed him. "No."

"I thought not. If it was there'd be rum."

And it's so much like Jack that Bootstrap wants to laugh as much as he wants to cry, and he can do neither, so he holds the rum out to Jack, who pries it from his fingers with some difficulty, the digits cracking.

"You got the Pearl back, I see." There is a note of accusation in his voice, although he tries to hide it. He missed Jack, and this is not what seeing him again should be. But -- You killed him, Jack. How could you?

He doesn't notice. Doesn't know, and that makes Bootstrap angry until realizes what it is he's really saying.

"I had some help retrieving the Pearl by the way... your son."

Distantly. "William?"

So they killed him together. Hector must have gone after Will for the gold Bootstrap sent. And Jack... used him, didn't he? To get the ship back. Well. That Bootstrap cannot hold against him -- he knows well who Jack is, and he probably saved Will's life in the long run. "So he ended up a pirate after all."

It's just another thing to add. The grief builds up behind Bootstrap's eyes. This is his fault. If he had been able to stop Hector, if he hadn't sent away the gold... It's he who deserves to be cursed. It was never Hector. He who should be dead.

Jack shrugs, taking a deep swallow of the rum. "And to what do I owe the pleasure of your carbuncle?" He is trying to joke, but Bootstrap just wants to be gone. To be back on the Dutchman -- a desire he would never have thought he would feel -- where water will fill his ears and his brain and his soul and he won't have to look into Jack's eyes and remember all that he's missed.

"He sent me." Quick. Blunt. Be done with it.

"Who?"

"Davy Jones."

Jack chuckles, moving back to sit down on a barrel. "Ah. So it's you, then. He shanghaied you into service, eh?"

Bootstrap leans forward, gritting his teeth. "I chose it." He bites the words from the air. "I'm sorry for the part I played in the mutiny against you, Jack. I stood up for you. Everything went wrong after that." Meaning: I should have stayed with him. I should have helped him. I should have tried harder. It's my fault. Jack, you killed him.

A hermit crab scuttles by, and Bootstrap grabs it, biting down on that as well. He wants to kill something. To hurt something. And if it's not this creature, it'll be himself. Don't judge me, Jack. You've done your fair share of evil, and I'd die for you anyway.

"They strapped me to a cannon." They, because he cannot say his name to Jack when Jack's killed him and they both know it. They, because he still cannot bring himself to blame Hector. He won't. "I ended up on the bottom of the ocean, weight of the water crushing down on me, unable to move -- unable to die, Jack. And I thought that... even the tiniest hope of escaping this fate, I would take it. I would trade anything for it."

Jack smiles the way he does in the rare moments when he doesn't know what to say, and hands Bootstrap the bottle. Bootstrap looks at him desperately. Is this all you can give me, Jack? He wants to say. You killed him. You killed him, and you'll hand me rum and expect me to drink. I wish I could hate you, Jack Sparrow.

"It's funny what a man will do to forestall his final judgement --" He begins walking away, but Bootstrap stands quickly, blocking his path. "You made a deal with him too, Jack." He growls. Don't judge me. I did what I had to. "He raised the Pearl from the depths for you. Thirteen years you've been a captain."

"Technic--"

"Jack!" Desperately. Afraid. "You won't be able to talk yourself out of this! The terms which applied to me apply to you as well. One soul, bound to crew a hundred years upon a ship."

"Yes, but the Flying Dutchman already has a captain, so there's re--"

He leans forward, close to Jack, willing him to understand. "Well, then it's the locker for you! Jones' terrible leviathan will find you, and drag the Pearl back too the depths and you along with it." Jack leans back, away. You never listened to me, Jack. Neither of you did. Can't you understand for once that I know better than you, Jack? Please. Please. You killed him. Let me save you. Warn you.

Jack takes a step back, grimacing nervously. "Any idea when Jones might release said terrible beastie?"

He is starting to fade. Jones is pulling him back, Bootstrap can feel it, tentacles wrapping around his mind and heart. "I already told you, Jack. The time is up." He reaches out to grab Jack's hand, because he must and because he wants to. Jack's skin is warm and living, more than anything else, and Bootstrap tries to focus on him, to look into his old friend's eyes. Please, Jack. Find a way. "He comes now, drawn with ravenous hunger, to the man who bears... the black spot."

Jack pulls his hand away, and with the loss of contact, that life line, Bootstrap is pulled back. Wood, and water. More water, and then wood again. Jones stands above him, smiling at his pain, because he knows, he knows, he knows, and Bootstrap cannot last under his eyes. He struggles to his feet and away, hides below in a far corner of the hold and curls into himself and tries to tell a story but none will come.

Oh, Hector. I love you.


	4. Like so Many Scars

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Please don't sue me.

**To the Ends of the Earth: Like so Many Scars**

In time the dreams return, as they always do. Time passes. The world is still the world without Hector in it, and although Bootstrap resents its continuance, if there is any place in it to fit the mood of one who is lost, the Flying Dutchman is that place. They sail through air and they sail through sea and that doesn't change. Bootstrap dreams.

There's no one else in the world for us, he whispers into Hector's ear as he wraps his arms around him, bare chest against bare back. There's no one else in the world. This is it. You're it, for me. I love you.

And sometimes there's anger. Who else would love you? The voice is distant, and Bootstrap's mouth moves along with it although he wills it not to. The words are his own, somehow, though his heart aches with each. Who else, Hector Barbossa? With your closed and hardened heart, which not even my hands can coax open? How can you not love me? I'm all there is. Bootstrap kisses the back of his neck to chase the words away and wakes up alone and tasting dust.

They're fever dreams. He sleeps in the hold now, unable to stand to hear them, those inhuman moans at night while he lies in bed and tries to hear Hector breathing like he used to. Each of the others knows that he dreams too, of the life he once knew, of lovers who are now long dead. But Bill is still the most human, and while their grief shrinks and changes his grows deeper each day, that ever expanding pit in his stomach or heart. Even when awake -- you're all there is for me, he whispers to himself with each heave of every rope, each turn of the kraken's wheel, each late night-scrub of the deck. The work is no longer difficult, no longer matters at all. He doesn't care that he is trapped, does not long to be free. You're all there is for me. All there was. You're dead, Hector, and there's nothing else.

I let him kill you, he whispers too, when Jack's face appears in the dreams. I let him kill you, but I never would have let you kill him. It's good that I'm here. Jack smirks in his infuriating way, all glints of teeth and glints of gold, and when he's gone everything is Hector again.

Loved you, Hector. Loved you. That's all I ever did. Bootstrap wakes to the unasked question and wonders where it came from; that drifting, that nothingness.

Fever dreams. Fevered dreams. They stand on the deck of the Pearl and Hector turns to him because Hector is dead and it doesn't matter anymore what Bootstrap imagines. There is no longer the fear that someday he might have to look into Hector's eyes and pretend that he never wanted him. Never loved him. That there was never a time when even in his dreams he called him Hector freely, without fear, and touched him everywhere and cried into his tangled hair. Hector is dead and it doesn't matter. So tonight you'll touch my face and kiss me desperately and tomorrow you'll tell me you love me and you'll do it again the next night.

And in the mornings Bootstrap will remember and then he will be glad for the hard wood under his back, for the solitude, because for those few moments numbness eludes him and he won't be able to help but cry for the memories. Will not be able to smother them with dreams.

There's this time. There's this time.

I almost told you once. Twice. Did you know that? There's was this time when we were young, and I'd gotten hurt -- a deep cut across my back which seem fatal at the time. I'd never noticed how hard you tried to protect me until you couldn't, how you stopped to check for my breath before killing the man with the sword, and even through the gentle haze which comes with loss of blood and the acute fear that I might die, I watched you, face alive with emotion the way it only was when you were angry, that bitter fierceness and those gritted teeth, and I thought in that moment that you were beautiful without wondering what that meant and when it was over and you bandaged my back, rough fingers on tender skin, I turned and hugged you before I could think and almost told you. But the surprise in your eyes frightened me, and even though your arms came up to wrap around me as well, I couldn't.

You probably don't remember that. I'm sure you don't. Didn't.

Bootstrap doesn't know if pirates believe in heaven, but he knows that they believe in hell. He cannot forget Jack's last words on the day of the mutiny, damning them all. The deepest level of hell is reserved for betrayers and mutineers. Bootstrap would not argue in his case, would readily admit that this is the fate which he deserves. But Hector... the tears make simple patterns in the salty dust and he cannot help insisting to himself and any god who might be listening that Hector doesn't deserve to be in hell. That he had a good heart, even if he didn't show it. Even if he didn't know it himself. Bootstrap believes that. Fights to believe it. Loved him.

Then tell me why you did it.

He wants to slam him up against a wall, to threaten a kiss and see Hector's eyes darken with desire rather than distance and to pull back at the last moment. To feel the withheld whimper shiver through his friend's body and to ask him in a whisper.

Why did you do it? Teasingly and without desperation, as if the right answer were a key, some trinket he desired rather than the one thing he'd been longing to know for so many years.

So, Hector. Tell me why you did it? But Hector's dead and he'll never get an answer.

I would have killed you, Jack, if I'd been there. Without any sort of hesitation, no consideration of the fact that you used to be a friend. A brother, even, and a part of me. I would have killed you without a second thought and I think that makes me more dangerous than Hector, don't you see that? Because he couldn't kill you, and he couldn't kill me. He didn't even kill my son.

So why can't you have killed me instead? he asks Jack and the world itself. It should have been me. It should have been me, Jack. I loved him. I love him. I don't know how to live without him. He's all there is. All there ever was.

The days pass numbly and he does what he must. Kills, works. Works and kills. Grows more inhuman every day; darkened, mottled skin, and starfish threatening to grow over his eye. And those are his nights, the endless dreams. And mornings of memory.

The second time.

You were gone for days. Left on one of the boats. Told us not to bother about it, that you'd come back, but I didn't believe you. You'd been pulling away so much... leaving our room, not letting me touch you, not even letting me call you Hector any more, and I'd always been the one you let call you by your first name... Jack laughs at me for worrying so much, and says that either you'll come back or you won't, but that there'd be a time to come when I wouldn't have you to hide behind all the time.

"I don't hide behind him. Just because I have some sort of loyalty --"

"Loyalty!" Jack stands up, nearly knocking over his full glass of rum, and scrambling to right it. "What you have isn't loyalty, Bill," he says, looking at Bootstrap darkly, then shrugs. "Besides. I'm your captain, your loyalty should be all mine."

"He's just -- I just -- I care about him, that's all," Bootstrap mutters into his own drink, afraid. But you always knew, didn't you Jack? You always knew. I don't know how I never realized it. I was always afraid that you'd figure it out one day, with all your teasing comments, but you knew all along. "I just want him to come back." I still don't know where you went. I wish I could have asked you. I wish I could have -- oh, Hector, there are so many things we've missed...

The memories are fragmented by grief and for moments there are just tears, and Bootstrap leans to appreciate the time they spend underwater, because although he still fears them, still feels trapped by the sea seeping into his skull, on those days no one will comment on the redness of his eyes, will not taunt him by speaking Hector's name. He kills a man for it once, although of course the death is temporary, the dulled blade of his knife tearing through the man's stomach for whispering the name while he is sleeping, having snuck down to steal rum. The hundreds of hermit crabs which spill from inside him pinch and cling to William's skin but he cannot feel them and doesn't care and almost likes it when the captain orders him lashes, because physical pain is fleeting and in those few seconds while the whip is white-hot on his skin Bootstrap cannot miss him.

But that's so pathetic, isn't it Hector? You'd call me weak. You'd call me weak. Love's nothing, just making eyes at someone. Messes with your head. Makes you do stupid things. You'd call me weak.

The door slams open. Hector, wet from the rain. He's there, and Bootstrap wants to go to him, to hug him, but the time's long past when he was young enough to get away with it, and Hector is already changing. Jack winks.

"I'll leave you lovebirds to get reacquainted." He saunters past, and Barbossa growls and says nothing.

When they're alone -- the room is small and dimly lit, and Bill stares down at his empty mug as Hector sits across from him and still says nothing.

"Hector--"

"Barbossa," he interrupts sharply, and Bootstrap sighs, nodding tiredly.

"Barbossa. So you're back? Jack said --"

"Jack." Barbossa interrupts, catching on the name. "About Jack. Did ye ever thin' maybe we can' trust 'im?"

William looks at him, eyes full of surprise, because whatever he might have expected Hector to say this isn't it. "Of course we can trust Jack," he says slowly. "He's our friend."

"Is 'e? We promised, everythin' was to be an equal share. Tha' includes information, Bootstrap, and Jack's been keeping things from us."

"That... that doesn't mean..."

"I'm going teh take th' ship." And there's a flicker in his eyes that Bootstrap misses even in his memory. There's that flicker. It speaks of help and confusion and something that in another life might have been love. Of why he's been gone and why he's been going and why he won't let Bootstrap touch him anymore. Closeness.

In a future Hector will tell him he loves him. You should know that. Will tell him, and William won't believe it until Hector whispers to him of death and longing and he'll learn to understand.

This is what Bootstrap dreams the night before he meets his son:

He wakes up in Hector's bed, and fingers scrabble on the cold sheets, searching for the other man who is not there. He opens his eyes and slips from the room, above deck into the open air and finds him where he always used to find him. Hector gazes out across the sea and Bootstrap watches him. Comes up behind him, but doesn't touch.

"You told me you weren't going to do this anymore."

Barbossa shakes his head, turning to look at Bootstrap. "No I didn't. Tha' firs' night, I said I wouldn' leave. Made no promise teh anythin' else."

He's quiet for a time, turning away to look onto the horizon. "What is it you're looking for?" he asks quietly. And now Hector is watching him.

"Fer a long time... I think I was l looking for ye," he says finally. "Teh find wha' i' was ye meant. Why yeh followed me. Why I fel' the way I did when you touched me."

The words are a fantasy. Something Hector'd never say, and even in the dream they ring false and make him want to cry.

He reaches out to touch Hector's face, smiling sadly, and wakes up to the bitter knowledge that it was never him. It was never anyone else, but it was never him. He'd never had Hector, so he hadn't... really lost anything at all.

It's only for a second that he can make himself believe that, but its a start. The very first step, and then the rest of the memory.

"I'm going teh take th' ship."

He's standing now, circling the table to stand behind Bootstrap, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Ye'll be with me, won't yeh, William?"

Bootstrap closes his eyes, and argues for a long time after that, but it's the first time Hector's touched him in what feels like forever, and the intimate way his lips curl around his real name make Bootstrap's heart shiver inside his chest, and he knows then without a shadow of a doubt that he will be with him. That Barbossa will make him choose, and he will be unable to even consider the question. It's you, Hector. Of course it's you. It's always been.

And he almost tells him then, because it might be a distraction, or a flicker of why this wasn't fair, why Hector couldn't possibly make him choose. Why it wasn't a choice. To make Barbossa understand that this is why he'll follow him, why he'll watch silently as Hector leaves Jack on that island to die and will not be able to speak until much later, when his guilt is stronger than even his love. And it might be the one thing that could make Hector stop for a moment and think and really look at him. But this isn't the Hector he knows, this person whose hand rests heavily on his shoulder, and the words catch in Bootstrap's throat.


	5. Without a Hurt, the Heart is Hollow

A/N: You really must read the story Trust by CaptainMeds if you're reading this, because it's awesome, and don't you want to know what dear Hector is doing while Bootstrap's all trapped on the Dutchman?

I completely forgot to say that this is based partly on a wonderful RP I'm doing with her, didn't I? Urk. Well, yes. It is xD

Oh, and again, I apologize for any mistake I might have made with the actual scenes from the movie, again I'm going mostly on memory, and filling in pieces which weren't actually shown.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Don't sue me. Again, I don't even own the title.

**To the Ends of the Earth: Without a Hurt, the Heart is Hollow**

Three boys search for a gem.

Their ship is named the Treasure, and she's small and old but they love her. Took her themselves, they did, walking up the gangplank as sons of aristocrats and sailing away as pirates. Jack stands at the bow of the ship, his new compass clutched tightly in his hand, and watches the dial spin and steady, feeling palpably the desire in his heart. And Hector behind him, on the raised platform which isolates the wheel, holding it steady, his eyes lost to the sea. William watches him because he always watched him, even then, and tries not to hear Tia Dalma's words echoing in his head, this hiss of her voice in his ear. Don't give up on him. Don't give up.

She looks at Hector and warns him not to be greedy after giving Jack the compass in exchange for the promise that they'll find it, this gem, so William steps forward and asks for his own bit of wisdom, and this is what she hands him, stooping low and breathing warm and wet over his cheek. Don't give up on him.

A fantasy:

"Yeh were mean' fer more than this..." Hector speaks quietly to him, trailing his fingers over the slight stubble on Bootstrap's cheek as they lay beside each other, bare legs intertwined. Bootstrap laughs, shaking his head. "More than this? More than here, with you? No. You're all I am." Hector looks at him as if he knows it isn't true, so Bootstrap kisses him, and for a long time there are no more words.

He wants it, when he's young. To be nothing else, nothing but love for him, to compress and vanish into his heart. To shed his body and all he is and to be allowed to really love him. To catch every thought, every feeling, every stray impulse. To know and understand him entirely, why he pulls away and why he hates to dream at night.

There's this cave they come to in their quest, dark and cold and surrounded by water, and there's a voice that holds them apart, each alone with their fears. Their dreams. William doesn't know what Hector sees, but he sees Hector, watches him as he falls cringing on the floor, eyes dark, crying out soundlessly, and it speaks to him that he will give up. That there will be a time he looks at Hector with fear and hatred, sees him as the world will; as a monster.

William doesn't know if this is threat or prophecy, but when it releases him he runs to Hector, to comfort him in the only way he knows Hector will accept, clasping his hand over the shaking boy's shoulder, and knows by the way his stomach flips when Hector's hand finds its way up to hold it there that it cannot possibly be the future.

Damn it, Hector. We were so blind. Come back. You can't be gone.

It's raining. Hard. The water drips down Bootstrap's face and into his eyes, his hair plastered to his forehead, but they are above water nonetheless, so who is he to complain? That he cannot learn not to care about, cannot be struck into it even by the loss of the one thing which made his life worthwhile. He hates being underwater. He still does.

So he ignores the smoothed-faced men who have just joined the crew, ignores the guilt which says he is happy to have stopped to destroy their ship and kill them, because it means they'd had to surface. Not to mention that every ship they sink which is not the Pearl seems almost a relief to Bootstrap.

He didn't see it himself, though he hears whispers that the Pearl was there, and Jack himself, that he made a deal with Davy Jones, another one, to save his life, but they still follow Jack, just out of sight, so he knows it must be some sort of trick. He'd told his friend he couldn't talk his way out of this. Should have listened.

The music of Davy Jones' organ pounds away distantly, and by now Bootstrap knows every note by heart, along with every other member of the crew. The rope is rough and slippery under his fingers as he pulls it along with the other men.

There was a time you laughed at me for not knowing how to do this very thing.

Well. I've learned.

I miss you.

"Secure the mast tackle, Mister Turner! Step to it!"

Bootstrap looks up, releasing the rope he holds as well as the memory. He scrambles up to it, to take this rope as well, ready to preform the same tasks over and over for still nearly one hundred years.

There's a pale body beside him, a young man, and Bootstrap doesn't look at him. He crowds beside Bill, trying to grab the rope himself. "Step aside!"

"Mind yourself," Bootstrap growls. It won't help you to seem to eager, lad. To do work which isn't meant for you. There's no special treatment here, the captain hates us all the same. Envies what little humanity we have left.

"Back!" The boy orders, shouldering him away.

"Let go, boy!" He looks up.

No.

He lets go of the rope in his shock, and Will dives to catch it, the weight of the cannon dragging him across the deck. It crashes down and the music stops and Bootstrap cannot move.

The bosun's voice is distant, barely reaching his ears. No. It can't... he can't be here... "Haul the weevil to his feet!"

The crew swarms around his son, dragging him up, and Bootstrap still cannot move.

"Five lashes, to remind you to stay on 'em."

"No!" The cry is harsh, strangled, and the bosun advances on him sharply, growling. "Impeding me in my duties? You'll share the punishment."

No. You won't hurt him. "I'll take it all," he answers fiercely, drawing himself to his full height. I'll kill you if I have to, but you won't touch him with one slimey finger. Even in shock, Bootstrap cannot freeze if Will is in danger. You won't hurt him.

But there's that sound, that slow pounding of wood on wood, and the crew parts, and Bootstrap hates himself for the edge of fear which creeps into his heart, the faltering of his resolve.

"Will you now? And what would prompt such an act of charity?" Davy Jones speaks with curious amusement, and Bill can see the question in his small, black eyes. What is it can draw Bootstrap Bill from his little pit of self-pity? What is it that can interrupt his grief?

There are times the captain watches him, Bootstrap knows, can feel his eyes on him as he works, tears drying on his cheeks, know he takes a certain pleasure in Bootstrap's grief, because he cut out his heart simply because a woman didn't love him, and cannot imagine the pain Bootstrap must be feeling to have truly lost the one he loved, but knows that it must be worse and that pleases Jones more than he'd like to admit.

"...My son." Low and disbelieving, his voice like gravel through the lump in his throat, as his eyes fix on William's face and beg for some kind of forgiveness. "He's my son."

Davy Jones' eyes widen with glee and he laughs. "Ha ha! What fortuitous circumstance be this. Five lashes be owed, I believe it is." He reaches out for the whip, tentacles curling around it tenderly, and holds the thing out to Bootstrap.

"No... No, I won't!" He stares up at the captain with horror, because he knows that although he'd been ready to kill the bosun, to take on the entire crew for Will, there is nothing he can do to Davy Jones and in the end he will do what is asked.

"The cat's out of the bag, Mister Turner. Your issue will feel its sting, be it by the bosun's hand or your own."

"No."

"Bosun--"

"No!" He grabs the whip, clutching it to him. He's been punished by the man many times, and though Will would live, that is not a fate he could willingly watch his son endure. He closes his eyes and does what he has to, feeling more the coward with every stroke. He tries to do it lightly, but the whip is sharp and when he opens his eyes Will's back is cross-marked and bloody.

"You had it easy, boy!" The bosun yells with a laugh, and Bootstrap shoves the whip back at him as the crew tosses Will to the lower deck, the boy landing in a pool of water. He rushes down, speaking his son's name as he grips the boy's shoulder, trying to help him up. "William--"

"I don't need your help," Will says angrily, shoving Bootstrap aside and staggering up unaided.

"The bosun prides himself from cleaving flesh from bone with every stroke," he explains desperately. The boy turns to him, teeth bared and growling the words.

"So I'm to understand what you did was an act of compassion?"

"Yes," Bootstrap answers, voice grave with the truth of it, because suddenly there is a small part of him which wants to live, wants to remain, and its the hatred in his son's eyes which sparks it. There, Bootstrap. Here's a reason.

He clings to it, after Will is gone, to the moment of horrible hope when Will speaks that he has sworn no oath, and Bootstrap looks at him wide-eyed and tells him to get away. Get away now, while you can, little son. There's nothing here for anyone, not even Davy Jones himself is happy on this ship. We sail and we kill and we forget who we are until we are nothing, and when we are freed we die. That isn't the life that's meant for you. This is what I deserve, along with your hatred, every inch of it.

But this is their time. The time they have. It's night and they stand in the wind on the deck because Will says he cannot sleep, but Bootstrap knows it is because of the pain from his back, and hates himself for that, too. They speak in hushed tones of Jack and the Pearl and when William tells the story Bootstrap cannot help but look at him with pain darkening his eyes and ask.

"So you... you met He-- Barbossa, didn't you?"

Will sneers in the dark and doesn't notice the slip of Bootstrap's tongue. "Barbossa? We killed him, father." Will speaks with a strange excitement, as if he believes that in killing him he was doing something noble. Something right. Strong and proud. "He's dead, trapped in the hellish depths of Davy Jones' own locker, to suffer eternally for what he did to you."

And because Bootstrap recognizes the plea for acceptance which is also there in his son's voice, he smiles weakly, gripping the boy's shoulder, and tries desperately to be proud.

Bootstrap gambles his death away, because Jones already has his life and his soul. His death, that final release, is all he can give to his son, and he gives it willingly.

You might think me a stupid old fool for doing what I did, William, Bootstrap thinks to no one once Will is gone, curled up in the silence of the hold and staring into darkness. You might think me a fool. But I did it for you. I did it for love. You're gambling your life away on Jack, and though I won't say he isn't worth it, you can't be. Jack will die, you should know that. This mess with the key and the heart is just delaying the inevitable. No one can defeat Davy Jones, not even my old friend, and you cannot kill yourself for Jack. It won't make any difference.

It's night again, and Bootstrap leans close to his son and gives him a knife, because it's all he can give the boy to protect him from what is to come.

"Now get yourself to land, and stay there." Don't go looking for him, boy. I know it's hard, but don't. He's as good as dead as it is. "It was always in my blood to die at sea. But it was not a fate I ever wanted for you." I made you a pirate without meaning to, and I can't save you from that. I'd... do anything to. But I've nothing more to give.

"It's not a fate you had to choose for yourself, either," Will answers, his voice edged with bitterness, and Bootstrap almost laughs as much as he almost cries.

"Aye. I could tell you I did what I had to, when I left you to go pirating, but it would taste a lie to say it wasn't what I wanted." To go with him. To be with him. But you wouldn't understand. I'd come back and be your father now, Will, if I could, and if you needed me. Because he's gone now, and there's no longer anyone I'd pick over you, and perhaps I shouldn't have chosen him in the first place but I couldn't do anything else. It's the first time he can think of Hector when the grief is a dull ache rather than a stab of pain and that almost hurts more. But the grief is no longer all he has. He'll never stop thinking about Hector, never stop loving him any less -- he has an eternity in which to love him, now. But as long as he knows his son is alive, he'll have something else to hold onto.

"You owe me nothing, Will. Not at all."

"They'll know you helped me."

He does laugh then, shaking his head. "What more can they do to me?"

Will looks down at the knife in his hand, and looks up at Bootstrap with a fierceness in his eyes which startles him, because it matches his own love and his own loyalty and that terrifies him.

He'd almost smiled when Will told him why he was there, that Jack sent him in the obvious hope that he'd take Will's soul for his own, because that was just like Jack, and he could already see the loyalty shining in Will's eyes. When he spoke of rescuing Jack from the noose, of risking his life for the girl he loved. Willingly sacrificing everything for the two of them. Because it's so clear that this boy is his son, this boy who grew up so far from him, the boy he dreamed about and damned with a coin. But now he wants to press his hands into Will's chest, to dig out this piece of him they share which means that he believes his own life is worth less than his love, because he can feel it burning inside himself and hates to think that this boy might do the same as he. He does not regret his own decision, but his son is worth more than that.

"I take this with a promise. I'll find a way to sever Jones' hold on you... and not rest until this blade pierces his heart. I will not abandon you. I promise."

Oh, William. When did I get so old that you can look at me with pity in your eyes and promise to save me?

Bootstrap cannot answer, so he watches silently as his son sails away, and accepts the punishment that comes in the morning as well deserved.


	6. Every Happy Family

A/N: Ah, another chapter Please R&R!

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Don't sue me. I do happen to own this title, though it's a Tolstoy referece.

**To the Ends of the Earth: Every Happy Family**

He left without saying goodbye.

William's mother had always been a very social woman, caught up in the glory of high society parties and her own magnificent dress. That is what he remembers most about her; she sits before a mirror, huge, gilded and gold, peering close to insert an earring while his father yells in the background that he knows where she's going, knows what she does at those parties and why can't she just stay at home, for her son if nothing else? She sighs and doesn't answer and William learns to be quiet.

And learns to be loyal. Watches his father sit defeated in the dark and swears he'll never leave anyone.

His father is all waving and smiles while the sunlight glints off his copper buttons in the blue-skyed daylight of Port Royale, an Admiral though he teaches William not to duel, but to dance, and when Hector later teaches him to duel he discovers they are much the same thing. Pressed up against a mast with sword at his throat.

Nothing changes. At first it's the three of them but really only two, William and his father alone, and later it's the same. Because Jack insists on taking the Captain's cabin to himself, so the smaller one is left for Hector and William, and on their first night William brushes against him in sleep and Hector turns, and watches, and _stays_, and William doesn't understand what that means until much later.

I try not to give away too much of the future, but I find that that's difficult when one is delving so into the past.

This will happen: "I still don't know what it was that made me go with you..." Bootstrap whispers, his head rested against Hector's chest, that reassuring heartbeat under his ear. "From the ceremony, I mean, that first time... even then I knew I had to follow you..."

Jack's one of them, but he has first his quest for the Pearl and then the Pearl herself, so often comes down to just William and Hector, and William watches his friend steer their ship with complete trust that he knows where he's going.

I want to paint a picture for you of this man. I want to give him to you trisected. There's the man William sees and the man the world sees, and then there's the man Bootstrap sees when he's grown and lies bleeding in a tiny cell on the Dutchman, huddled against the bars and wondering bitterly what his own father would think of him now.

He doesn't try to hide what he's done, because it's obvious, and whatever Bill may think of Davy Jones, he knows he isn't a fool. He'd known it when he joined, and he knows it now, and though he tries he can't manage to regret the man, to pity the romanticism of what he is, this empty creature whose heart beats alone for love; because his own heart hasn't beat for some time now, and he's not sure he even remembers how it feels.

So there's blood, and there's pain, and it's bad this time but he's getting used to it. To crawling across the deck in those few moments between when the whip stops and when his legs remember how to work, to the faces smirking down at him. But they hadn't let him leave, this time, and that Bootstrap isn't used to. Is used to being alone, but not used to being trapped in any prison smaller than the Dutchman itself. The bars are cool against his forehead and he never regrets for a moment that he can feel.

But he's beginning to suspect he may be going insane.

It's a cell. It's a cell. There's a corpse on the floor, flesh picked away by the sea. and Bootstrap wonders what he'd look like now if someone cut him open; if he'd still be flesh and blood, or if he's just water. Almost wants to try it himself and see, except that he doesn't want to die and he gave away his knife.

Bootstrap thinks that perhaps his father killed himself. Wonders what it means that he knows he will never do the same. Wonders if it was his fault and if his father loved his mother as much as he loved Hector -- loves Hector -- or if Will loves Elizabeth like that, and pities them both because though he may not have Hector, no one else does either, and no one did even when he was alive, and wonders why it is that trying to kill him is so preferable to leaving him but only knows that it is.

Because he can make excuses. But he won't make excuses. Won't give Hector a reason because there isn't one which makes sense, but he'd forgive him if he could and he wonders if on the long shot that his son rescues him, for which he won't allow himself to hope, if he'll ever be able to stop thinking of him. Ever be able to stop loving him the way he does, where everything is him and there's nothing else, but there was never anything else after he met Hector. And that's almost a comforting thought.

I don't mean to imply that it went from being him to being you and that was all, because it wasn't that way. I loved my father, but I left him and I could never leave you. I never even wanted to, when I longed constantly to leave my father. To leave that life.

It's dark and William looks up at his father, eyes shining with admiration, as the man brushes back that groomed, untangled hair and wonders why he so wants a life for his son that he hates himself. Bootstrap imagines these thoughts, pulls them from his father's eyes as he feeds them into his head himself and for a moment he remembers and is glaringly aware that his own son is probably dead. But he's grown accustomed to using Hector to mask his pain.

"Do you think you could ever forget me?" Hector is asleep, but he pulls Bootstrap closer at the question, and though he longs to shake Hector awake and ask again, he forces himself to be content with that as the answer.

We're getting closer.

Bootstrap is beginning to have more and more trouble differentiating between what he dreams and what is real. What might be real. What's meant to be. He stands with Hector on the deck of a ship and though his back burns with the whip he'd never have expected to see Hector so glad to see him. Never expected to see him again, of course, except in dreams, and though this is a dream it somehow seems more to him, that the body near his beats and exudes heat, so he's careful and doesn't touch him as he might have in a true dream, but when Bootstrap wakes up he can't remember anything.

He hasn't seen his own reflection in anything of better quality that the undulating surface of the sea since he left Port Royale, but as he stares into it, picking at the few blurry details he can grasp -- the crusted growth of his cheek and the starfish, as well as the simple arch of his nose and the sharp line of his jaw, and tries to remember if he looks like his father. If his son looks like his father, and if his son looks like him, and if any Turner in this line will end up better, because the one time they returned to Port Royale, when Bootstrap was only just Bootstrap rather than William, or even Bill, there was a brand new admiral, and no one would speak of what had happened to his father.

"We'll be fine, Bootstrap." Hector holds him close and looks into his eyes, and even though their hands are cold, Bootstap entangles their fingers, and suddenly wants to kiss those jeweled hands, trace the unique lines of his palm and fingertips, those patterns that mean the man against him is Hector and could never be anyone else. "We'll ge' out o' this. We've been through worse, haven' we?" Hector smiles, and Bootstrap could never keep himself from smiling back. "An' then we'll ge' our own ship..."

Wonder -- what's real and what isn't. There's a power in telling a story that Bootstrap understands but never grasped, this slow leak of details. Later Bootstrap will wonder if perhaps Tia Dalma has been in their heads all along, in their dreams, guiding with light touches and simple words.

So be a dream or don't be a dream. But be something.

I think he reminded me of you, father, this son of mine. I saw my own devastating loyalty in him -- and while that's not inherently a bad thing, if the person you want so badly to protect doesn't want to protect you equally badly in return, then the loyalty can only be displaced. (See? I've learned. I've learned something. ) But I also saw your passion and your drive. Your ambition. I never had that. I ran away.

"The boy's not here. He must've been claimed by the sea."

"I am the sea."

Remnants of broken ships. Wood. Metal. Sail cloth. And bodies. Sailors are part of the ship, nothing more than that. You're a pirate, so be a pirate. Learn. You killed but you never learned to kill. No one to kill. There are no survivors. Those who kneel shaking on the deck are not alive if the captain says they are not alive. William is not there.

"He must've been claimed by the sea."

"I am the sea."

"You need time alone with your thoughts."

Bootstrap almost laughs, because his best friend is dead, and his father is dead, his son is probably dead, and if there's anything in the world he needs less it is time alone with his thoughts.

Hope. Hope. Hope.

"The boy's not here."

He could've gotten away. Leapt off the ship at the last moment. Found a rowboat, or even swum. Strong boy. He could have made it. Might have made it. Has to have.

Hope.

Bootstrap never once suspects that his son crouches in the bow of the ship, cradled between the teeth of it, the water speeding close and sending spray to chill the boy but not to kill him.

But there's hope. Hard not to be. Wouldn't have been, a few days ago, before the boy showed up on the ship and handed him a reason for it. To want to live. To want to leave. But that was hope too, and there's nothing harder to let go of.

So he'll miss Hector because that's nothing new, but now he'll wonder, too, if his father is proud of him, and he will not think of the body of his son slowly decomposing at the bottom of the sea. Will not blame himself for these deaths which are all his fault if they exist at all and he isn't altogether sure they do at times. Slipping. But we're getting closer.

How does a person become what he is? William watches his mother leave his father and leaves his father and leaves his son. But could never leave him.

Will is left by his father by choice and his mother by death and Bootstrap longs to know what he's learned, what truths he can find in that solitude. If he regrets the answers.

Did you know, father? Son? That I was happy? Does that even matter? I was supposed to be more. I know I was supposed to be more. But I can't have been, and I don't want to be. Cool metal against his forehead and rotting wood beneath.

I loved you, too. The best I could. Forgive me.


End file.
